Reference is made to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/809,397, filed Mar. 15, 2001, entitled CAMERA WITH BELT CLIP MOVABLE TO READY AN ELECTRONIC DEVICE SUCH AS AN ELECTRONIC FLASH, BY Stiehler et al.
The invention relates generally to the field of photography, and in particular to belt clips suitable for use with cameras. More specifically, the invention relates to a belt clip that is movable to ready an electronic device such as an electronic flash.
Film and cameras that are all in one, commonly referred to as disposable single-use or one-time-use cameras, have become well known. The one-time-use camera is a simple point-and-shoot type camera comprising an opaque plastic main body part that supports a conventional film cartridge in a cartridge receiving chamber, an unexposed film roll prewound from the film cartridge onto a film supply spool in a film supply chamber, a fixed-focus taking lens, a film metering mechanism with a rotatably supported metering sprocket that engages the filmstrip, a manually rotatable film winding thumbwheel rotatably engaged with a film winding or take-up spool inside the film cartridge, a single-blade shutter, a manually depressible shutter release button, an exposure counter wheel that has a numerical series of evenly spaced exposure count indicia and is incrementally rotated to successively view the exposure count indicia, an anti-backup pawl that engages the exposure counter wheel to prevent its reverse rotation, a direct see-through viewfinder having front and rear viewfinder lenses, and in most models an electronic flash. A pair of opaque plastic front and rear cover parts house the main body part between them to complete the camera. The rear cover part connects to the main body part and/or to the front cover part to make the main body part light-tight. A decorative cardboard outer box or label at least partially covers the front and rear cover parts and has respective openings for the taking lens, etc.
After each picture is taken with the one-time-use camera, the photographer manually rotates the thumbwheel in a film winding direction to similarly rotate the film winding spool inside the film cartridge. This winds an exposed frame of the filmstrip from a rear backframe opening in the main body part into the film cartridge and advances an unexposed frame of the filmstrip from the unexposed film roll to the rear backframe opening. The rewinding movement of the filmstrip the equivalent of slightly more than one frame width rotates the metering sprocket in engagement with the filmstrip to decrement the exposure counter wheel to its next lower-numbered indicia and to pivot a metering lever into engagement with the thumbwheel in order to prevent further manual rotation of the thumbwheel in the film winding direction. Manually depressing the shutter release button to take another picture pivots the metering lever out of engagement with the thumbwheel to permit renewed rotation of the thumbwheel in the film winding direction. When the maximum number of exposures available on the filmstrip have been made, and the filmstrip is completely wound into the film cartridge, the one-time-use camera is given to a photofinisher who separates the rear cover part from the main body part and removes the film cartridge with the exposed filmstrip from the cartridge receiving chamber. Then, he removes the exposed filmstrip from the film cartridge to develop the latent images and make prints for the customer.
The electronic flash is mounted on the main body part between the front and rear cover parts and includes a flash circuit board with a normally open flash charge switch. The flash charge switch consists of one or two fixed switch contacts and a movable switch element that is moved against the one or two fixed switch contacts to close the flash charge switch in order to charge the electronic flash for use. See prior art U.S. Pat. No. 5,565,943 issued Oct. 15, 1996, and No. 5,943,521 issued Aug. 24, 1999, each of which is incorporated in this application. Various activating members are provided to be manually moved to move the movable switch element to close the flash charge switch. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,565,943 discloses a lever that is manually pivotable from a folded position to an erected position on the front cover part to move the movable switch element. An improvement from the standpoint of consolidating parts is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,943,521 in that a protective lens cover is supported to be manually pivoted when open to move the movable switch element.
Often it is desirable to include an accessory belt clip with the camera, but this would be in addition to the activating member for manually moving the movable switch element to close the flash charge switch.
According to the invention, a belt clip for a camera that includes a pair of front and rear cover parts, a main body part between the front and rear cover parts, and a particular device on the main body part that needs electrical energy to be able to operate and has a power switch with a movable switch element that is moved to change the power switch from a normal state to a working state in order to provide electrical energy to the device, comprises:
a clip portion for holding one""s belt between the clip portion and the rear cover part, an actuating portion for moving the movable switch element to change the power switch from its normal to working state, and an intermediate portion between the clip and actuating portions; and
the intermediate portion is configured to be pivotally coupled with the main body part to permit the clip portion to pivot away from the rear cover part, in order to remove one""s belt from between the clip portion and the rear cover part, and to pivot the actuating portion to move the movable switch element to change the power switch from its normal to working state as the clip portion is pivoted away from the rear cover part.